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'Advance proofs from December MrClure's 
for release Decemberd5th. " 



The Country We Forgot 

by 
DANIEL HENDERSON 






a lie 




T/i(? £>«.?£ of Christian IX still looks out over the 

harbor 



Gift 

Author 

OCT 19 1920 



The Country We Forgot 

by 
DANIEL HENDERSON 

Upon complaint from certain natives of the Virgin Islands, 
a Congressional Committee has been appointed to investi- 
gate conditions in that territory. McClure's has an- 
ticipated Congress and "scooped" the 
magazine world in this story. 

« — _ _ 

rpHE people of the United States don't 
-*- care a rap about the Virgin Islands!" 
said a young American whom I met in St. 
Thomas. "Few Congressmen realize our 
needs, and scarcely one person in a hundred 
thousand knows anything about our location, 
our conditions, or our problems !" 

What he said was true. My own experience 
on the steamship "Brazos" bound for San 
Juan, the port from which I was to sail for 
the Virgin Islands, proved it. There was the 
typical American tourist, for instance. He 
came lurching down the long deck, steadying his 
wind-beaten bulk by frequent clutches at the 
rail. He espied a copy of the ship's wireless 
in my hand, and down into a vacant steamer 
chair he thumped. He read the wireless re- 
ports from home and launched into a discus- 
sion of the League of Nations. I turned the 

Copyright, iqi 9 , by The McClure Publications, Inc. All rights 



reserved. 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

conversation to the Virgin Islands. He grew 
apathetic. Were they near Porto Rico? No, 
he didn't intend to visit them — only well-known 
places were on his itinerary. 

There were Americans on the boat whose 
business took them to Porto Rico. The man 
who sold tractors did not think there was a 
sufficient market for them in the Virgin Islands 
to justify a side trip to them from San Juan. 
The Hebrew clothing salesman on his annual 
trip through the West Indies did not see 
enough business in sight in this new American 
territory to pay him to make the trip. Ameri- 
cans located in Porto Rico praised the hospi- 
tality of the people of the Three Virgins, but 
really, it would be better for a person to spend 
his whole time in seeing San Juan, Ponce, and 
other Porto Rican towns. It seemed not so 
much the country we had forgotten, but in- 
stead, the country of which we had never heard. 

I had expected to find a steamer waiting 
to transport me to the Islands ; instead I found 
a two-masted schooner, a Herreshof yacht 
that had been built to defend America's cup 
from one of Sir Thomas Lipton's assaults, but 
which, failing in the trial races, had been 
forced to earn her salt in the sea lanes of 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

commerce by carrying all sorts of cargoes. 
She now lay moored to a wharf in San Juan, 
awaiting her share of the motors, gasoline, 
flour, garlic, and all those varied articles which 
the tides of trade had cast upon this Porto 
Rican shore. 

I glanced at her dubiously ; so did the group 
of young American business men who strolled 
down to the wharf to see me off. The "Brazos'" 
had just plowed her way into harbor through 
heavy seas. It was hurricane season. Could 
this two-master span the eighty miles of ab- 
normally high waves to St. Thomas without 
mishap? It was this boat or nothing, so I put 
doubt behind me and went on board. 

Perched upon an odorous crate, I watched 
the "Virginia" load. 

Here Too: Postal Inefficiency 

Down the street from the splendid modern 
building which houses the Federal offices in 
San Juan, came the mail. The mode of trans- 
porting it was in sharp contrast to the imposing 
post-office from which it came. Two brown- 
skinned natives in nondescript attire pushed 
down the wharf a grocer's hand truck, piled 
ligh with mail bags. Around the truck gath- 




A deck view of the "Virginia," the sail-boat which 
is the only link between Porto Rico and 
the Virgin Islands 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

ered native stevedores. Each hoisted one of 
the bulky, blue-striped bags to the top of his 
head. Up the swaying boards that served as 
a gang-plank they went, dropping their bur- 
dens through an open hatchway in the after 
deck of the ship. Later I saw these bags 
unloaded upon boats at the ship's side, and 
only the nimbleness of one of the native 
handlers saved a carelessly-thrown bag from 
dropping into the Caribbean Sea. Later, at 
St. Thomas, I found that the personal squab- 
bles and inefficient administration of the post- 
master — a political appointee — were on every 
tongue. 

My own experiences were soon to impress 
upon me that Uncle Sam had paid twenty-five 
million dollars for these islands and forgotten 
to provide a way to get to them. Senators 
and Congressmen can visit them on battleships. 
The Governor of the Islands very properly 
has provided for him the cruiser "Vixen" ; 
but the ordinary patriotic citizen who desires 
to visit our new territories from San Juan — 
the logical route between them and the United 
States — must undergo all of the discomforts 
and privations that attend a three or four days' 
voyage in a primitive sailing vessel, with no 
food except that which the passenger himself 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

provides, and with no other means of sleeping 
than in a coop on deck or in an ill-smelling 
cabin, the berths of which are shared indis- 
criminately by whites and blacks, men and 
women, well or seasick. 

As an example of the way in which the 
Virgin Islanders and their relatives in the 
United States suffer today for lack of ready 
transportation to the United States, let me 
cite the following case : 

Father Blank is an American Redemptorist 
Father, now stationed at St. Thomas. He 
received a few weeks ago a cable message 
stating that his father, who lived in Baltimore, 
was seriously ill and wished to see him. No 
passage was procurable at St. Thomas. He 
came in the "Virginia" to San Juan, hoping 
to obtain transportation on a steamer leaving 
there, but was informed that all berths had 
been booked for weeks ahead. He tried to 
persuade an army transport to take him, but 
there was a rigid rule against carrying anyone 
but soldiers or their relatives. As he was 
wondering what attempt to make next a cable 
came that his father was dead. 

Nothing can weave the United States more 
closely to the West Indian Islands than steam- 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

ships. On the Quebec liner "Guiana," on 
which I managed to secure passage home from 
St. Thomas, were a dozen young men and 
women coming from the Virgin Islands and 
neighboring islands belonging to Holland, 
France and Great Britain, to go to college in 
the United States. Some were even going so 
far as Valparaiso University, Indiana. 

In March, 1917, the Danish' flag went down 
over the Virgin Islands and The Stars and 
Stripes arose. The purchase price was twenty- 
five million dollars. From a military view- 
point the price may have been a fair one at 
the time. At the present time, even the price 




The "Virginia's" skipper and the primitive berth 
in which Mr. Henderson spent three nights 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

of five million dollars, for which the islands 
could have been obtained a decade ago, seems 
high. St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix are 
the three principal islands of the Virgin group. 
St. Thomas and St. John lie close together and 
constitute one governmental territory. St. 
Thomas and St. John have an area of forty- 
eight square miles — about twice the size of 
the District of Columbia. About ten thousand 
people live on St. Thomas and about one 
thousand on St. John. Most of the inhabitants 
of St. Thomas are crowded into the little town 
of Charlotte Amalie, which spreads itself out 
around St. Thomas bay. 

The town is built on a series of hills that 
form an emerald horseshoe about the turquoise 
waters of the harbor. The houses run from 
the beach up the hills, as if they intended to 
cover the summits, but halfway up they tire, 
and leave the peaks unconquered. The cluster 
of white and red steeples and roofs surrounded 
by palms and tropical flowers, and with the 
yellow beach and blue water at its feet, give 
you the impression that you are entering a 
quaint and lovely toy town, and the rumors 
that have come to you of discontent and con- 
tention and misery seem unbelievable. 




. 1 I S » I 







The little toivn of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

On the outskirts of Charlotte Amalie dwell 
a little community of white French fishermen. 
The natives call them "Cha-Chas" in con- 
tempt. They are fishermen, desperately poor. 
They live in hovels that are worse than those 
occupied by the blacks, yet they possess a code 
of morals that few of their contemners can 
boast ; and — what few of the other races here 
can say — they marry their own kind and keep 
their white strain pure. 

Forty miles south of St. Thomas lies St. 
Croix, the largest and most beautiful of the 
Virgin Islands, with an area of eighty-four 
square miles and a population of about 15,000. 
Christiansted, the capital, and Frederiksted, its 




A house of the better class in Frederiksted 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

rival, lie twenty miles apart, at opposite ends 
of the island, with a fair road connecting 
them. Christiansted has facilities for a fine 
harbor if the reef that bars its entrance could 
be dynamited. Frederiksted, the port nearest 
St. Thomas, has its harbor on the open sea, 
yet due to its southwest location, it is well 
sheltered. 

Too many human problems press upon us 
for discussion to permit me to dwell upon the 
tropical loveliness of these islands ; the hum- 
ming birds that peck out of your sugar dish 
as you eat ; the pet deer that in St. Croix are 
almost as common as dogs ; the friendliness 
and courtesy of their people ; the pirate castles 
and legends ; the turbaned street merchants ; 
the cool, ever-blowing trade winds and healthy 
climate ; the blue waters in which bathers revel 
the year round ; indeed all those charms that 
have made neighboring islands winter para- 
dises for northern people. Given a larger 
American colony, and prompt and comfortable 
steamer service, there are big inducements here 
for private capital to erect a chain of Ameri- 
can-conducted hotels on the green hills over- 
looking these shores. 



the country we forgot 

American or Danish? 

It adds a piquancy to these towns, even if 
it makes one reflect that we have forgotten 
to create an American atmosphere here, to 
find Danish traditions and customs still pre- 
vailing. The Danish settlers themselves are 
neighborly, industrious and well-intentioned 
people ; yet an American visiting the Islands 
remembers the enormous purchase price and 
wants at least an American atmosphere to 
show for it. In Charlotte-Amalie, I heard the 
native band play "The Star-Spangled Banner," 
and watched "Old Glory" rise to keep its daily 
vigil over the harbor; yet under its folds I 
saw the bust of a Danish King looking out over 
the harbor as if it was still under his dominion. 

The street corners still carry sign-posts 
bearing Danish street names, such as, "Tolbod- 
gade," "Hospitalgade," "Kongegade," etc., the 
last syllable in each case meaning "street." 
Larger than any American business inscrip- 
tions are such signs as "Den Dansk Vandiske 
National Bank" and "Det Vestindiske Kom- 
pagnie." These signs, it is true, have painted 
under them their English meanings, which 
are, respectively, "The National Bank of the 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

Danish West Indies," and "The West India 
Company, Ltd." 

The chief inconsistency with American cus- 
toms is that of the money used on these islands. 
Uncle Sam, when he bought them, made con- 
cessions to Denmark that do not appear to be 
"good business." The most glaring is the one 
made to the National Bank of the Danish West 
Indies, by which the exclusive "monopoly to 
issue bank notes" is continued for the term of 
years set forth in the original charter by the 
Danish government — until the year 1934. Thus 
we have the anomaly of an American territory 
dealing for the next fifteen years almost ex- 
clusively in Danish money. The yearly bud- 
gets of the three islands are made up in terms 
of Danish francs — a franc being equal to 20 
cents of United States money. I sent a porter 
into the post-office at St. Thomas to procure 
me change for a dollar bill, and he came back 
with five francs and a "bit" piece in his hand — 
the "bit" represented the premium allowed on 
the American dollar. To make matters simpJe 
for Americans, it is stated in English on each 
coin just what its value is in United States 
currency. On the notes, however, there is no 
such translation. You read in English that 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

the bank will pay to the bearer on demand 
iive francs in gold ; the value of five francs is 
left for you to discover. When an American 
goes to draw a check for, say, $10, he writes 
its equivalent in Danish money. 

The bank officials are accommodating, and 
American business men in the Islands found 
no fault with them— yet to permit this Danish 
institution to continue its peculiar monopoly 
implies that even at the beginning we forgot 
that new American business men might come 
to these islands and want to use the currency 
to which they had been accustomed. A planter 
stated with a chuckle that one of the reasons 
he voted for the income tax was that the 
Danish bank would have to leave some of its 
large profits in the Islands, for the upkeep of 
the country, instead of sending them all to 
Denmark. 

A humorous instance of Danish methods is 
found in the apothecary shops, one of which 
is located in each town. Each of the apothe- 
caries has been granted by the Danish Crown 
the exclusive right to operate in its locality. 
When the announcement came of the purchase 
of the Islands by the United States, and when 
it became known that the Danish Bank had 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

been protected, the apothecaries complained 
to the king that they had been overlooked, and 
were now subject to American competition. 
Denmark had more money than she knew how 
to use. Here were loyal subjects who thought 
they had been injured. Money would salve 
their wounds. To each apothecary the king 
made a grant of $30,000. Two years have 
elapsed since then and each apothecary is doing 
business at the same stand, with no American 
rivals in sight. Business is booming. They 
carry side lines of American canned goods and 
confections. They will continue to prosper 
during their lifetime — and each has stowed 
away at good interest — $30,000. 

The Benevolent "Pooh-Bah"" 

Like one of Gilbert and Sullivan's immortal 
characters, Pooh-Bah, who filled simultaneous- 
ly the office of First Lord of the Treasury, 
Lord Chamberlain, Attorney General, Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, Privy Purse and Pri- 
vate Secretary, is G. C. Thiele, who is Judge 
of the Town Court, Judge of the Dealing Court 
for the administration of debts, Police Master, 
and Member of the Colonial Council by ap- 
pointment. As policemaster he arrests a man ; 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

as judge he tries and sentences him. Hearing 
these things you enter his office in a critical 
mood, but you meet a modest, good-natured, 
obliging young man who smilingly confesses 
himself guilty to the crime of performing so 
many duties, and who ventures an explanation 
that makes you go back and reconstruct your 
preconceived opinion of him. 

The reason is this: Until its new code of 
laws goes into effect several months hence, 
St. Thomas is being administered under the 
old Danish laws. Judge Thiele was formerly 
the assistant judge, and when his superior re- 
signed he took his place. }ie is of Danish 
birth, but when the transfer was made he 
gladly complied with that section of the treaty 
that permitted him to become an American 
citizen. He then was perhaps the only man 
in St. Thomas who thoroughly understood the 
workings of the Danish law (the Islands have 
been such a poor field for lawyers that legal 
talent is lamentably scarce) and he was ap- 
pointed by the American governor to admin- 
ister there various offices while the temporary 
form of government lasts. As there is no 
money available to pay the salary of a Police 
Chief, and as there is little law-breaking in 
St. Thomas, he has been given charge of police 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

affairs. He suggests instead of criticising him 
for the work he is doing in behalf of law and 
order in Uncle Sam's new possessions, it would 
be fairer to cite concrete cases in which his 
filling these offices has worked an injustice to 
any person — a thing that no one seems able 
to do. 

No one can fail to discover as he inquires 
among all classes of men in St. Thomas as to 
the way in which Judge Thiele performs his 
duties, that he is upright and just. His chief 
enemy appears to be a colored lawyer from 
the States whom he had debarred from prac- 
ticing law because of the extortionate fees 
charged poor clients. 

Any important sentence made by Judge Thiele 
is reviewed by the Governor, and in all cases 
the man at the bar has a right to appeal to 
United States courts. Only one appeal has 
thus far been made — and this — a minor case — 
is still pending in the court to which it was sent. 

It is, of course, distinctly un-American for 
a judge to act as chief of police and trial judge 
as well, and the quicker this rule is changed, 
the better; yet one leaves the Islands with an 
opinion that coincides with that of all of Judge 
Thiele's American associates: that he is too 
fair and too valuable an administrator of jus- 



THE COUNTRY. WE FORGOT 

tice for his adopted country to be lost to 
Uncle Sam. 

The Passing of the Pirates 

The port of St. Thomas was once the ren- 
dezvous of pirates wjiose "Jolly Roger" ter- 
rorized the Spanish Main. The decaying 
castles of "Bluebeard" and "Blackbeard" on 
these shores are pointed out as the former 
abodes of two of the choicest of these cut- 
throats. 

Such men are only traditions now, but it 
appears that up to the time the United States 
purchased the islands the pirate spirit existed 
in a more subtle and refined form. This is 
not to say that honest business men were in 
the minority in St. Thomas in those years; 
but, if those who know the customs of this port 
are to be believed, of sharp dealings there 
were many. Such transactions took this form : 

The St. Thomas signal station would show 
that there was a new ship about to enter the 
harbor. Out to meet it would go represen- 
tatives of rival, concerns, each begging the 
captain to appoint him his agent for obtaining 
supplies. The skipper having chosen one, this 
individual would take the captain, engineer or 
steward asho^ ; provide wine or women for 






DANIEL HENDERSON 

his entertainment, and, when the mariner was 
sufficiently befuddled through such hospitality, 
would get his signature to a receipt for ship's 
stores that was two or three times more than 
would be delivered by the agent. 

The same condition is said to have existed 
in regard to coaling — many a skipper or en- 
gineer would find that he had signed a receipt 
for hundreds of tons more coal than he had 
actually received, for which the owners of his 
boat must eventually pay. Sometimes, too, the 
same methods would procure from a captain 
permission to paint or repair his ship, when 
such work was unnecessary. 

These practices were stopped when "Old 
Glory" rose over St. Thomas harbor. The 
honest business man — and there are many of 
them in the Virgin Islands — has now a fair 
show for the trade of the port, and the captain 
of a vessel does not now need to pass by St. 
Thomas for fear of overcharges. When the 
maritime prosperity of this port is renewed, 
its business will be conducted on a sound basis. 

The Haunt of the Hurricane 

The Virgin Islander discusses hurricanes 
very much as we chat about the weather. The 
lot of the official weather observer is a hard 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

one. Each building is provided with hurri- 
cane doors and shutters in addition to the usual 
ones, and when warning of a cyclone comes 
all these must be closed. In the case of the 
Redemptorist fathers, who have both houses and 
churches to protect, it takes forty minutes to 
shut all their doors and shutters. When this 
preparation is made by the people, and no 
hurricane comes, they are vexed at being put 
to the unnecessary work; but if, on the other 
hand, a hurricane came without the observer 
having warned them of it — a tornado of criti- 
cism would be hurled at him. 

The houses are roofed with galvanized iron, 
and it is when these are torn loose by the wind 
and sent flying through the air that the greatest 
danger prevails. A prank 'of the last great 
hurricane was to blow an aged colored man 
out of his bed, carry him and the bed down a 
hill, hurtle him against an obstruction and kill 
him, and then lift his corpse and leave it 
lying on the still upstanding bed. 

Women Coal Passers 

One of the unique scenes at St. Thomas is 
the line of strapping colored women who serve 
as coal passers on the coaling deck of the 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

West India Company. These are full-fledged 
union members and idolize George Moorehead, 
the negro organizer who obtained for them 
an increase of pay from 1 cent to 3 cents a 
basket. 

The baskets of coal weigh about 100 pounds, 
yet these women carry them on the tops of 
their heads without steadying them with their 
hands. Sometimes a man-of-war comes in to 
coal with a band on board. The band plays 
while the coaling goes on — perhaps there is 
an ulterior motive behind this. At any rate, 
the women, laden with their heavy baskets, 
walk towards the ship with a sinuous dancing 
movement very much like a "shimmy" and 
the coaling is done in record time. 

Life in St. Croix and St. Thomas has been 
rendered vastly more enjoyable by two bands 
organized by our navy, and composed entirely 
of natives. The play in the public square, 
morning and evening, at the raising and low- 
ering of "Old Glory," and on three evenings 
a week give a program that is hugely enjoyed 
by the native population, to say nothing of the 
Americans. Whenever the band marches 
through the town it is followed by a singing, 
swaying crowd of darkies. 



the country we forgot 

Marriage Without Ceremony 
American standards of race purity are 
thrown to the winds here. The population- 
may be considered as a mixed race. In Amer- 
ica our census inquiries show four classes of 
persons : single, married, widowed or divorced 
In the Virgin Islands a fifth class is added, 
which includes a large portion of the native 
population— those who live together without 
the marriage ceremony. 

When a priest or minister remonstrates with 
this class there comes a variety of excuses: 
the white men who owned or had charge of 
the estates on the islands under previous gov- 
ernments set the example, and the couple con- 
cerned are only following in the footsteps of 
their masters; or a man will give the excuse 
that when he lives with a woman and regards 
her just as his "keeper," she will do the house- 
work and in addition go out in the fields and 
work with him, but if he makes her his- wife, 
then she realizes that she is more independent 
and will not work in the fields; or, a couple 
will say that they do not know yet whether 
they want to live a lifetime as man and wife, 
and therefore must have what is equivalent to 
a trial marriage. The trial will run on for 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

years, children will be born and grow up but 
still the ceremony does not take place. An- 
other excuse, generally given by a woman, 
is that she wants to have a fine marriage cere- 
mony, and must wait until she and the man 
she lives with can save up enough money to 
afford it. This last excuse the priests and 
ministers use as a means of getting such 
couples to marry. A wedding ceremony elab- 
orate enough to satisfy them is planned and 
the long-delayed step is at last taken. In one 
case an old native woman stood up as a bride, 
in the full array of white garments and orange 
blossoms, surrounded, by her children and 
grandchildren. 

A native woman came to the door of one 
of the priests one night accompanied by four 
children of varying shades of complexion, and 
begged him to help her to get support from 
the government for her brood. 

"Why doesn't your husband support them?" 
the priest asked. 

His query brought out the information that 
each of the four children had had a different 
father, each of which had deserted her and 
to none of which she could look for financial 
help. 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

Since the American missionaries began work 
on the Islands they have lain stress on the 
importance of marriage. One priest informed 
me that while formerly in his parish there 
were five marriages a year, last year there 
were thirty-seven. 

One day, in making a religious survey of a 
certain sugar plantation, the observers went 
round with the native overseer of the place. 
They called at his home, saw his family con- 
sisting of a wife and three children, and then 
began their tour. Outside a certain hut they, 
met a grinning half-naked urchin whom the 
overseer carelessly greeted. In another spot 
they met a little girl. When the census takers 
asked their names and parentage, the overseer 
said: 

"Those are my children." 

"How is that?" asked one of the observers. 
I thought we met your entire family when we 
started out!" 

"Oh," answered the man, without the slight- 
est indication of shame, "those are my out- 
side children !" 

Unions thus formed are dissolved as care- 
lessly as they are begun, and because of the 
thousands of deserted women and children, 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

poverty and sickness are increased. Vigorous 
work must be done to save the children of 
these parents from following in their footsteps. 

Business Opportunities 

In St. Croix, facing the harbor, stood a dis- 
tinctly modern American building — the ground 
floor devoted to stores, the upper to offices. 
Gold letters painted on its stucco front told 
me that within this place were centered a half- 
dozen American industries. 

In an upstairs room, clad in a cool white 
suit, I found a well-groomed American at- 
tending to business with the alertness and 
despatch characteristic of lower Broadway in 
Manhattan, but very amazing in this land of 
lazy ease. 

This man was Robert L. Merwin, a native 
of New York State, former consular agent 
for the United States in St. Croix when the 
island was a Danish possession, and now per- 
haps the most representative American busi- 
ness man in the Islands. He is agent for the 
Quebec Line, Lloyd's, the New York Board 
of Underwriters, and has a dozen other busi- 
ness irons in the fire. In addition to these 
many interests, he is Chairman of the Colonial 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

Council for Frederiksted and is also Chairman 
of its Poor Commission. 

I cite Mr. Merwin's activities to show the 
opportunities that await Yankee ingenuity and 
capital in these territories. 

Merwin's great-grandfather settled in Mil- 
ford, Conn., in 1842, and all of Merwin's 
ancestors are buried there. Merwin, despite 
his home-loving forebears, came to St. Croix 
in 1885, when he was twenty-two years old, 
to establish a branch house for L. W. and P. 
Armstrong, West Indian shipping merchants 
with headquarters in Connecticut. Merwin, 
after six years of West Indian experience, 
went into business for himself. Now, when 
a concern in the United States, England or 
Canada seeks representation in St. Croix — all 
inquiries lead to him. 

Men like Merwin and his son, Miles, who 
is now ending his war term in the Navy and 
coming back to St. Croix to join his father 
in business, are fair examples of other out- 
posts of American business I found in the 
Islands. For the development of these terri- 
tories there should be more of our opportunity- 
seizing business men there. 



daniel henderson 

Have We a Sinn Fein of Our Own ? 

A few months ago, Rothschild Francis, a 
negro representing a group of native workers 
in St. Thomas, presented to a committee of 
Congress a petition setting forth a list of 
grievances that indicated that there was some- 
thing rotten in the former state of Denmark. 

Were the grievances presented by this dele- 
gate true? Was there poverty and misery 
and mis-rule in the Islands ? Had we forgotten 
that here were thousands of new Americans 
with problems and aspirations similar to ours, 
waiting in vain to enjoy the blessings Uncle 
Sam usually pours out with generous hand on 




Rothschild Francis and a group of radicals who 
want home rule 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

those who come under the guardianship of 
his flag? It was in search of answers to these 
questions that McClure's Magazine sent me 
down 1,500 miles of blue water to the Virgin 
Islands. 

Rothschild Francis is listed in a Commer- 
cial Directory of these islands as conductor 
and manager of the Eureka Orchestra Club, 
formerly bandmaster of the defunct "Amateur 
Brass Band" ; vice-president of the American 
Historical Research Society ; organizer of the 
St. Thomas Section, Socialist Labor Party of 
America (which society is stated to be "the 
pioneer of socialism in the Virgin Islands") ; 
and president of the United Laboring Asso- 
ciation. His original trade was that of shoe- 
maker. In the September issue of a negro 
publication he is hailed as president of the 
Workmen's Council, "One Big Union." The 
negro labor element in St. Thomas elected 
him to be a member of the Colonial Council. 

The work of Rothschild Francis — and of all 
labor union leaders on the Islands — is sup- 
ported by dues of twenty cents a week levied 
on each member. Rothschild Francis was sent 
to the United States on money contributed by 
the members of his labor union, and while in 



DAN TEL HENDERSON 

the States had received additional money from 
the Virgin Island Protective League, a body 
of colored men, natives of the Island, who now 
live in New York City. He stopped in New 
York on his way home to address a meeting 
of the latter group, and was heralded in their 
circulars as : 

"The Honorable Rothschild Francis — 
Labor Agitator, Race Fighter and Legislator." 

While I was in St. Thomas I saw the officers 
of his union selling in the streets copies of 
the September number of a New York pub- 
lication entitled "The Messenger: The Only 
Radical Negro Magazine in America," a pub- 
lication every article of which flamed with 
hatred for the white man and with incitements 
to violence. It was illustrated with cartoons 
condemning the Booker Washington type of 
leadership and showing the "new negro" in a 
speeding motor car equipped with automatic 
rifles and revolvers, shooting down crowds -of 
fleeing white men — to make America safe for 
the colored man. Next to an article advocating 
that the American negro adopt Bolshevism, 
appeared an article by Rothschild Francis on 
the need of changed conditions in the Virgin 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

Islands. In introducing Francis the editor 
also bestowed on him the title "Race-Fighter." 
This paper by Francis was by far the most 
temperate article in this hate-creating publica- 
tion, yet the association of himself and his 
fellow-workers with so vicious a propaganda, 
leads one to question whether Francis is the 
right type of leader for the easily-swayed 
negro element. Rival labor leaders say that 
he has embraced the dangerous doctrine that 
all things belong to the laboring class, and is 
in favor of short cuts to ease and prosperity 
instead of the old-fashioned but true principle 
that the way to prosperity is through faithful, 
productive work. 

The claim of Francis to be the leader of the 
working people was thrown into doubt when 
a colored member of a larger union handed 
me this prepared statement concerning Roths- 
child Francis's "Working People's Com- 
mittee" : 

"It does not represent more than about 200 of 
the entire laboring population of this island, and 
these are for the most part malcontents from the 
largest labor organization extant in St. Thomas, 
which is known by the name of the "St. Thomas 
Labor Union," whose entire membership stand 
at present over three thousand strong. The 
president of this institution is George A. Moore- 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

head, the most popular labor agitator ever known 
here as the recorded membership of the union 
testifies, hence it is easy to understand from these 
facts that Francis is not the accredited represen- 
tative of the Working People. Francis has barely 
succeeded in influencing a few by blatant and 
unreasoning appeals to the ignorant crowd, but 
the more intelligent class of laborers will have 
nothing to do with him and his movement." 

One of the things Rothschild Francis advo- 
cated in his petition to Congress was a change 
in the present legal system by which a Judge 
tries a prisoner without jury, subject to review 
of his decision by the Governor. 

Trial by jury for which Francis asks is 
theoretically a fair and American principle. 
On. these islands, however, the population is 
7.4 per cent, whites ; 17.5 per cent, white and 
negro blood ; and 74.9 per cent, negro blood. 
The negro element is very largely composed of 
men of untrained and primitive minds. Thus 
the jury box would be filled with colored men, 
swayed too often by negro lawyer-orators who 
have been inflamed by Bolshevistic principles 
and whose principal stock in trade is to rail 
against the white men who supply the capital 
and brains necessary to the prosperity of the 
Islands. 

Another of the pleas of Francis if for "Suf- 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

frage based on manhood." At present the 
right to vote is extended to male citizens who 
are 25 years of age, whose personal income 
amounts to $300 a year or who own real estate 
or other property yielding an annual income 
of $60. This law thus insures that only 
responsible men can cast a ballot. The tend- 
ency is to give the native the franchise as soon 
as he has the intelligence and education to use 
it rightly, and a wholesale granting at present 
of the vote to the ignorant classes would tend 
to make of the Virgin Islands another dis- 
rupted Hayti! 

Francis also appeals for a "reconstruction of 
the school system in direct accord with the 
American conception." Plans to do this were 
completed before Francis left the island. Be- 
ginning with the Fall term, schools were being 
conducted in accordance with American prin- 
ciples ; and compulsory education was in force. 

More of justice is present in the plea of 
Francis for a Homestead Act that will turn 
over uncultivated land to the people. The 
tragedy of St. Thomas, from an industrial 
standpoint, is that if there is not sufficient 
work in the harbor, the great mass of working 
people have nothing else to do. These have 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

been drawn to the town by the larger wages 
paid for harbor work, and once a town resi- 
dent, it is hard to get the negro to go back 
to the land. 

"Yas, I know Rothschild Francis," said the 
black "boatie" who ferried me ashore. "I 
gave some money to help send him to the 
States." 

"What is he trying- to do up there ?" I asked. 

"He wants to better conditions for us work- 
ing men down here. You see, this harbor can't 
support all the workmen— not enough ships 
comin' in. See all that land" — he swept his 
arm around to include the uncultivated hills 
that girded the harbor — "it is mostly owned 
by people who live in Europe. Them people 
will rent land to laborers, dollar an acre a 
month, but after the laborer puts it under 
cultivation, if times are bad and he can't pay 
up, the land is taken away from him and 
thrown back into bush for stock-raisin'. We 
want it fixed so laborers can work the land 
and make this island self-supportin'." 

In St. Thomas the soil is almost hopeless at 
present. If this land is to be opened to the 
native, the United States should first furnish 
agricultural experts to prepare it for cultiva- 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

tion and instruct the negro how to work the 
soil. Though the land owners protest that the 
average negro is too shiftless to work the soil, 
incentive should be given to the ambitious and 
hard-working negro to become a property 
owner. The policy, if extended, of alloting 
small holdings of land to the laborers will do 
much to keep them on the islands and promote 
their ambitions. Instead of charging the negro 
a rental that he cannot afford to pay, some 
fair-minded planters have adopted the plan 
of letting him work it on a profit-sharing 
basis. If this were made the universal prac- 
tice, a homestead act would be unnecessary. 

This "Working People's Committee" asks, 
too, a law to regulate the scale of wages in 
St. Thomas. The Government, however, has 
done all that is possible to set the example to 
private employers. In a public statement it 
has set forth the rule that: 



"Every citizen of the United States residing in 
our islands should have an opportunity to earn 
for himself or herself by honest, healthful toil, 
a decent, healthful living," and has announced 
that while it can not impose its labor policy 
upon local communities, "it will welcome the 
public approval and support of its policy, which 
will become in reality the labor policy of the 
Virgin Islands of the United States." 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

Planters and harbor employers complain 
that the average negro laborer in the Virgin 
Islands is usually content with a sum of money 
small enough to supply his most primitive 
needs. If he is paid more by the day, he will 
stop working for the week when he has accu- 
mulated the sum he is used to receiving. 
Wages that seem very small when measured 
by the standard of the United States, are 
offset by the fact that the laborer lives under 
tropical conditions ; subsists on easily-obtained 
fruits and vegetables, rather than meat, and 
needs less clothing than northern men and 
women. 

It is true, as Francis states, that the housing 
conditions of the native laborers on the island 
are miserable and unsanitary. Their shelters 
are called "rooms" instead of houses, and 
their large families eat, sleep, bathe and enter- 
tain their friends in the one room. Americans 
and Danes protest that attempts to give the 
natives houses of three or four rooms have 
been made, and that they will use only one 
of them ; yet the white men of the Island 
will do well to recognize that the present 
"room" system is a relic of a bygone age, and 
that they will get more efficiency and content- 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

merit out of their workers by making better 
provision for their physical, mental, and moral 
needs. 

On St. John's Island, where there is no town 
and no industries, the poverty of the natives 
is extreme — one wonders how they manage to 
exist on the little food available. Most of, 
them live on two meals a day. For breakfast 
they use sugar dissolved in hot water; for 
dinner, a piece of dried fish with a portion of 
"Fungi" — which is corn meal boiled in a bag 
and then squeezed dry. 

The average native will not work on Sat- 
urday, Sunday or Monday. While he is kind 
and gentle and usually well behaved, he is 
also lazy and improvident. If he can work 
two days a week at a wage of 80 cents a day, 
the $1.60 thus gained is considered by him 
sufficient to provide for his wants for a week. 
The present school authorities have been 
forced by such conditions to advocate, not the 
license which some of their misguided leaders 
seek, but instead a law which will compel the 
native to work at least long enough each week 
to provide food and clothing for his children, 
in order that these may be able to attend 
school. 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

It is the opinion of representative men of 
the Islands that the chief thing which Roths- 
child Francis came to the States to advocate 
lies in the clause of his petition which asks 
that natives be permitted to fill all public 
offices whenever qualified. As most of the 
native citizens are colored, this clause aims 
to fill the offices with colored men. Civil Ser- 
vice rules apply on the Islands and there 
appears to be nothing to prevent the native 
holding office when he fits himself for the task. 
A Sinn Fein movement is undoubtedly at work 
among the negroes of the Islands, but native 
ability does not strike one as having reached 
the stage where things will go efficiently with- 
out the brains and executive ability of the 
white American. 

The Jungle Strain 

"Take up the White Man's burden, 
And reap his old reward: 
The blame of those ye better, 
The hate of those ye guard " 



Among the colored people on the Islands, 
who outnumber the whites ten to one, are a 
half-dozen labor agitators, with a score more 
enterprising young colored men waiting for 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

a chance to step into their places. A negro 
who, if born in Africa, might fill the office of 
a tribal chieftain, becomes in these islands a 
labor leader, and is 'surrounded with as much 
pomp and secures as much homage from his 
circle as an African clan bestows on its king. 

The career of George A. Moorehead is a 
case in point. Business men in St. Thomas 
regard Moorehead as the natural leader of his 
people and prefer to deal with him rather than 
with his rivals. They say that he is free from 
Bolshevistic tendencies, and preaches to his 
people that to earn more pay they must pro- 
duce more. The St. Thomas Labor Union, 
as has been said, far outnumbers any other 
body of workmen in St. Thomas. Moorehead 
originated the first successful strike at St. 
Thomas by which the men and women coal 
passers received a substantial increase. He 
invented a gorgeous regalia for the officers of 
his union ; he is fond of parades and oh such 
occasions rides at the head of his adoring: 
followers mounted on a big bay horse. 

One of the saving elements in the race sit- 
uation is that, once a negro labor leader rises 
to power, and deals with white men as the 
representative of the laborers, he comes to see 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

that the future of his people depends on these 
men who supply the money and brains for the 
development of the Islands, and gradually be- 
come conservative. Once he has signed an 
agreement with the planters, or with the harbor 
interests on behalf of his people, he tries to 
make them live up to it, but there is always 
danger of their losing control to some "race 
fighter" in their own ranks who chafes at 
restraint. 

In St. Croix, D. Hamilton Jackson, once a 
violent agitator, has calmed down recently, and 
this has given an opportunity to Morris Davis, 
a negro of the most dangerous type. 

One day Davis, originally a field laborer, 
walked into the grounds of a St. Croix planter. 
"I hear there are workers on this estate who 
don't belong to our Union !" he cried. One 
lone toiler was pointed out as having declared 
his intention not to belong to the Union. 
Thereupon Davis ordered a "walk-out." The 
director of the estate hurried to the scene and 
demanded of Davis what his business was. 

"I want justice !" foamed Davis. 

The director pointed out to him that in his 
agreement with the labor union no clause had 
been inserted forbidding him to employ men 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

who did not belong to the union. "In the 
face of my contract, is it justice for you to 
interfere with my laborers?" he asked. 

The only reply Davis made was to order the 
plastic negroes to leave the grounds. His in- 
fluence was strong enough to draw them off 
that estate and five neighboring ones, and to 
tie up the work of these estates for two days 
during its busiest season. 

The real labor leaders repudiated the action 
of Davis when they heard of it, and induced 
the workmen to return. Davis meanwhile 
busied himself in forming a union of the steve- 
dores at Frederiksted, embittering them by 
wild speeches against white employers. 

A False Strike 

Here is one of the reasons for skepticism 
towards labor on the part of West Indian 
employers : 

A certain engineer in a sugar factory located 
near San Juan told his employer that parts of 
the machinery needed overhauling and that 
the plant had better be closed down for a few 
days. 

The engineer had little acquaintance with 
labor conditions and was amazed when the 
factory owner said to him: 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

"All right, I am on good terms with the 
local labor leader. I will pass him a little 
money to call a strike. Then we won't have 
to pay the men while we shut down." 

The plan worked. The labor leader called 
the men off their jobs; they went, happy in 
the prospect of a holiday that was at the same 
time a rebuke to "Capital." A few days later 
their leader told them that the strike was 
called off; and back to the factory they went. 
The machinery was working now in fine shape. 
Only three people. knew that the wages saved 
by the employer had gone to pay the bill for 
repairs. A sorry story is this — one that re- 
flects no credit on the factory owner; yet 
worth the telling to show that the ignorant 
class of workers in these undeveloped coun- 
tries are as liable to exploitation by their own 
leaders as by the capitalists they rave against. 

It was largely due to the incendiary talk of 
Morris Davis that the little garrison of marines 
that were recently withdrawn from Freder- 
iksted and stationed at Christiansted were sent 
back post haste by the Governor. I visited a 
sugar planter on his lovely estate in St. Croix, 
where, for every white face, one saw a hun- 
dred black ones. While I sat on his porch 
hearing him tell of the negro uprising of 1878 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

in which his brother was killed by the blacks, 
I listened to his daughters and their com- 
panions dancing to the music of a Victrola, 
apparently as carefree as if they were in the 
heart of New York. The United States can 
forget many things about these islands but let 
it never forget that living in lonely sections 
of the island of St. Croix are families of pure 
Anglo-Saxon blood, the men, women and 
children of which are as much in need and as 
much entitled to police and military protection 
as those in the most populated sections of our 
country. 

The laborer who is a native of the Islands 
is generally peaceful and industrious ; it is the 
blacks who come from other islands to work 
on the sugar estates, who are irresponsible and 
shiftless. It is hard for the vicious type of 
negro to get firearms, but houses and cane- 
fields are easily ignited and his chief mode of 
destruction is to steal up under the cover of 
night and set fire to them. 

No American is mure needed in the Virgin 
Islands than the Marine; no one is more 
wanted by its white inhabitants; and yet no 
one has a lonelier existence than this same 
"Devil Dog." Few homes are open to him. 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

The white citizens will point to his occasional 
outbreaks as a reason for remaining aloof, 
but such outbreaks are too often caused by 
his being thrown on his own resources for 
amusement. 

In the gate of the old Danish fort that 
serves as marine barracks at Frederiksted, 
I found "Yuma," a huge, one-eyed bull-dog. 
The young medical aide with whom I motored 
around St. Croix told me the dog's history, 
which is parallel in several respects to the 
story of the dog hero of "The Call of the 
Wild." 

During the war, marines coming East from 
the Pacific coast, passed through Yuma, Ari- 
zona. The next day the owner of a bull-dog 
in that city was searching frantically for his 
pet. When the marines reached their destina- 
tion they led out of the car as their mascot a 
bull-dog which they had not possessed when 
they boarded the train on the west coast. 
Singularly enough, the dog's name was 
"Yuma." 

Fortune sent "Yuma's" new owners to vari- 
ous places, but always the bull-dog went along, 
until at last he entered upon his career as ruler 
over the native canines of St. Croix. To see 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

"Yuma" minus the eye that had been gouged 
out by an automobile, you would scarcely ex- 
pect much of him in a fighting way, but I was 
vehemently assured by the marines that he 
had "cleaned up" every dog on the island. In- 
deed, they offered to send "Yuma" out into 
the country with me to a certain estate where 
"Yuma's" chief adversary lived, but my ac- 
quaintance with the surly-looking old cham- 
pion had been too short for me to take liber- 
ties with him, so I declined the offer and 
accepted their word for "Yuma's" fighting 
ability. 

A Vanished Naval Base! 

There is as yet little to show that the much- 
heralded prosperity American possession was 
to bring to St. Thomas harbor is on its way. 
The German Hamburg- American Line was the 
principal customer of this port before the war. 
It built a great dock and its steamers touched 
here twice a week. It was the transshipment 
port for Germany for its trade in South 
America and this line alone made St. Thomas 
a thriving place. The gap left by the war, and 
by the shutting out of the German interests 
has not been filled. Where in pre-war days an 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

average of fifty ships a day visited the harbor, 
there are now barely a half-dozen. 

The United States Shipping Board to help 
matters, has recently made this a stopping 
port for its ships bound to and from South 
America, and is building two oil tanks to 
supply its oil-burning vessels with fuel. The 
floating dry dock, which is one of the harbor's 
main facilities, is in active operation. 

Danes still retain control of most of the 
harbor's facilities, and are anxiously waiting 
for Uncle Sam to send prosperity to the port. 
The Danish West Indian Company, Ltd. — a 
subsidiary of the East Asiatic Company — 
operates the coaling pier, and controls certain 
parts of the harbor. During the war the 
United States, fearing that some of its stock- 
holders were of German birth, tried unsuccess- 
fully to procure a list of them. Whether such 
was the case is problematical, but one fact 
would have been revealed that few people 
know — that the principal shareholder is Prince 
Axel, cousin of the King of Denmark. 

Mr. H. P. Berg, managing director of this 
company, a shrewd business man with wide 
shipping experience, believes that the pros- 
perity of St. Thomas as a shipping center will 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

be swiftly restored if American capital invests 
money to improve the present facilities of the 
harbor, and to restore the different routes for 
which St. Thomas was the center before the 
war. He holds that, owing to the great in- 
crease in the cost of ships and in their run- 
ning expenses, the future shipping of the 
world, in order to save time and money, must 
be planned so that large ocean liners will touch 
at easily accessible ports and there transship 
their passengers and cargoes by smaller and 
cheaper vessels to their destination. St. 
Thomas is admirably fitted to be such a center. 
Steamers from Europe and America would 
find it convenient and economical to stop here 
and connect with smaller steam or motor ships 
plying between St. Thomas and the islands 
and countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea. 
Thus shippers throughout the world could 
forward their goods on bills of lading via St. 
Thomas. This would not only restore the 
property of the harbor interests, but benefit 
the merchants as well. Mr. Berg also advo- 
cates making St. Thomas a "free port," so that 
American or foreign merchants can store goods 
intended for transshipment there for any 
length of time, without paying duty on them. 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

This would make St. Thomas an emporium, 
with ample supplies on hand for quick ship- 
ment, thus enabling American merchants to 
keep ahead of foreign competition. 

These measures, however, are predicated 
upon first bringing to St. Thomas the neces- 
sary ships. 

Wards of the Navy 

The administration of the Islands by Rear- 
Admiral Oman and his staff is painstaking and 
efficient. The business men of St. Thomas 
and St. Croix agree that the new Governor is 




Rear- Admiral Joseph W. Oman {front row, center) 
and his staff, efficient administrators 
of the Islands 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

democratic, easily approachable, and faithful 
to the interests of both territories. Around 
him are a staff of selected naval aides, under 
the leadership of Commander N. R. White, a 
human dynamo who has served in his present 
capacity since the United States took posses- 
sion of the Islands, and who plunges heart 
and soul into every plan that will help the 
Islands. These aides are young, clean-cut and 
"on their toes" to make their administration 
reflect honor to the United States. Yet, for 
all the devotion to duty of these men, it is 
plain that we have forgotten them, too. Where 
millions of dollars would be required to bring 
the Islanders out of their poverty-stricken and 
diseased and uneducated condition, Congress 
allotted them at first only one hundred thou- 
sand dollars, and any other sums allotted them 
since have been miserly in proportion to the 
crying needs of the Islands. 

We have forgotten to give them money for 
schools— though education will do more than 
anything else to save the boys and girls of 
the Islands from the evils that surround them. 
There are only nineteen public schools on the 
three islands. In the country districts the 
children walk four miles over hills five hun- 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

dred feet high. The average salary for teachers 
is $24 a month. The problem of getting teach- 
ers is made still harder by the fact that due 
to a Navy rule, the teachers receive only tem- 
porary appointments. The country schools 
have no desks ; the children sit on benches 
without backs. On the wild island of St. John, 
the School Director, Henry C. Blair, travels on 
horseback over steep mountain trails. Here 
the schools are eighteen miles apart. In some 
districts of St. Thomas and St. Croix, for 
lack of school houses, rooms are rented from 
the Moravian Church. There is need for 
Manual Training teachers; for high schools 
and night schools. There is no encyclopedia 
in the schools and even the school directors 
are forced to go without reference books. 
There is no map of any town or of the Virgin 
Islands in any of the schools. There is only 
a three months' supply of paper on hand. The 
supply of text-books is only half of the 
amount needed. There are no white teachers ; 
the native teachers now employed were either 
trained in Denmark or in Moravian schools ; 
these, however, have gladly embraced the 
American school methods now in operation. 
American Catholics have recently opened 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

schools, which, the School Director says, are 
conducted efficiently. There is no high school 
in the Islands and boys or girls who desire 
secondary or higher education are forced to 
go abroad. Each year from thirty to fifty 
pupils go out of the lower schools with no 
avenues open to continue their education. 
Thirty thousand dollars is badly needed for 
reform schools for girls of weak morals and 
for boys of vicious tendencies. At present 
the only school of this kind is housed in a 
cellar. 

We have forgotten to provide free libraries 
in the various towns. There is not even a. 
Dictionary available now for public use. 

There are no teachers of agriculture in the 
schools, although most of the pupils will have 
to depend on the soil to earn their subsistence. 

We have forgotten to provide the money 
needed in the hospitals. Our efficient Ameri- 
can doctors have changed the former ineffi- 
cient methods of child-birth, so that now ex- 
pectant mothers are brought to the hospitals 
in ambulances. This has materially reduced 
the number of deaths from child-birth. Milk 
stations have been established ; and babies are 
weighed and examined weekly. The infants 
are considered wards of the hospital for a 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

year. These methods have reduced infant 
mortality 50 per cent. These physicians have 
also taken long steps towards the control of 
widely-prevailing venereal diseases, but a great 
work is yet to be done. Ward furniture, bed 
linen, crockery for the kitchen, books and 
magazines to replace the ancient and torn lit- 
erature now on the library table, are required. 
When the dearth of money for hospital equip- 
ment was most acute, the Red Cross came 
nobly to the rescue with $60,000 worth of 
much-needed instruments and equipment, but 
there is need now for volunteer Red Cross 
nurses in all of the hospitals. 

Our great evangelical bodies, with the ex- 
ception of the Catholics, Lutherans, Episco- 
palians and Moravians, seem to have also for- 
gotten these islands. 

We have forgotten to provide reclamation 
engineers to help the zealous naval engineer 
who is in charge of Public Works to solve the 
irrigation problems of the sugar planters of 
St. Croix. While there is a fair rainfall here, 
the ground is so hard that the water runs down 
the hills into streams leading to the sea, and 
thus needed moisture is lost to the planters. 
St. Croix is the most fertile and productive 
of the three islands and can easily be made 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

self-supporting if irrigation can be successfully 
brought to it. It was suggested by a leading 
citizen of St. Croix that bonds be issued for 
these improvements by the group of planters 
who would benefit by the work, and that the 
issue be guaranteed by the United States. In 
Porto Rico irrigation has increased the output 
of sugar plantations over one hundred per 
cent., and there would seem to be small risk 
to the government in guaranteeing these bonds ; 
while the prospect of making this island self- 
supporting would warrant the co-operation. 

We have forgotten to provide money for 
sanitation. The streets, public gutters, mar- 
kets and squares are kept clean and tidy, bu: 
none of the towns has a sewage system. In 
St. Thomas the harbor is used nightly for a 
dumping ground, and in St. Croix conditions 
are equally bad. There is a vast amount of 
public improvements desirable in the Virgin 
Islands, but undoubtedly the greatest needs at 
the present time are adequate water supplies 
and sewage disposal for the three towns. 

In Christiansted during the last year a fire 
occurred that caused a large loss of property. 
This loss was due mainly to the shortage of 
water supply, which is solely derived from 
cisterns that catch the rainfall. The cisterns 



DANIEL HENDERSON 

are few and water is generally scarce. The 
lire engines often can not operate for lack of 
water. For fire protection, but more than 
this, for cleanliness and health, a satisfactory 
water system must be provided. 

We have forgotten to supply adequate quar- 
antine facilities to support Captain Liston 
Paine, the Chief Quarantine Officer, in his 
work of keeping contagious diseases away from 
St. Thomas. A sum sufficient to acquire Water 
Island, located where the vessels can be 
boarded before they enter the harbor, should 
be appropriated. 

In the police department, we have forgotten 
to provide adequate money to pay salaries that 
will bring from the States men of the sterling 
type of Gilmore, the retiring Captain of Mar- 
ines, whom the people of St. Croix want to 
make chief of police. The native police are 
drilled along military lines. In the country 
districts every estate is visited every other day 
by a mounted patrolman. Due to the regular 
meals the prisoners get, jail loses its hardship 
for many of the prisoners. The police are 
neatly uniformed and are evidently proud of 

their jobs. 

We have forgotten to provide money for 
proper fire departments. The salaried force 



THE COUNTRY WE FORGOT 

for the three towns consists of less than a 
hundred men. Now, when a fire occurs, men 
and women, boys and girls, rush to extinguish 
it with buckets. 

We have forgotten to supply stone crushers 
and similar equipment for the making and 
repair of roads on both islands-items vital 
to their prosperity. 

Above all, we have forgotten to provide for 
a survey by experts of the agricultural, geo- 
logical, labor, social, moral and industrial con- 
ditions of these islands, so that their unde- 
veloped or retarded resources can be swiftly 
utilized. J 

Roosevelt's Faith in the Islands 
"The purchase of the Virgin Islands will 
cost the United States Government scarcely 
more than it would pay to build and maintain 
a dreadnaught. So it would be with the 
Virgin Islands. Uncle Sam should be prepared 
to keep their resources up to the same high 
standard that marks his other colonial posses- 
sions Then, if war comes, he will have a 
naval station that will be worth to him a 
score of dreadnaughts." 

The speaker was Merwin of St. Croix The 
time was shortly after the beginning of the 




DANIEL HENDERSON 

world war. The man who sat listening to 
Merwin was Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, then 
making a tour of the West Indies, and paying 
an especial visit to the Virgin group, in the 
purchase of which he was strongly interested 

The Colonel's interest extended far beyond 
the mere acquirement of this naval base. He 
realized that the Islands should be kept up in 
accordance with American traditions. It was 
this feeling that led him to bring his fist down 
on the table between Merwin and himself an<! 
to say with characteristic earnestness: 

"That is the best argument I have ever 
heard for the purchase and upkeep of these 

islands !" 

The Virgin Islands were not self-supporting 
under the Danish rule, and they are not capable 
of maintaining themselves now. Denmark was 
too poor to maintain them adequately, but we 
have, not that excuse. 

The planters and shippers, who have little 
interest in the moral side of the drink ques- 
tion, complain that our Prohibition law, by 
closing down one of their principal industries, 
has further impoverished them, and they look 
to the United States to make good their losses 
in other ways. If we let these islands drift 
along in their present conditions serious trouble 






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OT 



threatens to arise. If we devote American 
ingenuity and capital to making them assets 
instead of liabilities, they and we will profit 
They must be well policed, so that brewing 
labor and race troubles will be calmed and the 
Islands made safe for American settlers and 
investors. 

The Navy Department is now doing its work 
of administration efficiently. If, however, the 
Naval officials at Washington can not secure 
from Congress the money needed to carry out 
the improvements for which there is a crying 
need, they can not hope, however good the 
personnel, to administer the Islands in a way 
that will reflect entire credit on their depart- 
ment. A banker returning from his second 
trip to the West Indies, shrewdly pointed out 
to me another handicap that goes with a naval 
administration. Officers of the Navy, he re- 
marked, have as a matter of course, had little 
commercial training. The biggest problem the 
United States faces with regard to this new 
country is to make it self-supporting. The 
banker's suggestion was that, if the Navy De- 
partment is to continue in charge of the Islands 
it should have the co-operation of our biggest 
captains of industry in planning and carrying 
out the development of these plantations and 



